A
foundry in Kolhapur having two plants :
This company is a supplier of
ground engaging tools, sprockets, idlers etc.
to almost all the major OEM of earthmoving equipments
in India. For certain parts, they are the single
source of supply. The company had problems of
very long lead time, high WIP and poor inventory
turns.
The management was convinced
that the answer to their problems was in applying
the TOC operations solution Drum-Buffer-Rope i.e.
DBR.
Thus, the mode of operations
was changed to DBR in April 2007.
The implementation was concentrated
on one plant first and then the other. In about
four months, the WIP in Plant 2 declined from
30 days to about 13 days. It kept on declining
steadily to go below 10 days in about eight months.
It continues to decline steadily.
Simultaneously, the monthly despatches
from Plant 2 rose by about 95% in four months.
The inventory turns have improved by more than
25% and continue to show a rising trend even now.
The Plant 1, which is the focus
now, is showing promising results. The inventory
turns have increased by about 53% whereas the
monthly despatch has increased by about 35% compared
to the values one year ago.
For both the plants put together,
the inventory turns have improved by about 28%
whereas the monthly despatches have increased
by about 100% by value as on 31st March 2008 i.e.
in one year.
All this was possible without
making any significant investment in addition
to capacity or resources.
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